CRTC praised for making French-language channels available across Canada

The CRTC is winning praise for its French-language specialty television policy, which takes into account not only the size of cable systems, but also their capacity to carry more channels. Under PN 2001-25, distributors serving more than 2,000 subscribers with digital capacity of 750 MHz or more will be required to carry all French-language Canadian specialty services and at least one pay TV service. The recently licensed Category 2 digital specialty channels and pay-per-view services are not included in the policy. In its Feb. 12 report, Achieving a Better Balance: Report on French-language Broadcasting Services in a Minority Environment, the CRTC also recommends that distributors with more than 2,000 subscribers and digital capacity of less than 750 MHz carry at least one Canadian specialty service in the minority language for every 10 programming services, both Canadian and non-Canadian, distributed in the majority language. The commission included Class 3 systems in the policy, compelling unaffiliated systems with less than 2,000 subscribers and digital capacity of 550 MHz or more to carry at least one French-Canadian specialty service for every 10 others in English in communities where French is the minority language. Affiliated Class 3 distributors must provide the same number of French-language specialty services as the system to which they are interconnected. "We’re very pleased with the decision. In fact, it’s almost word for word what we proposed in our intervention to the CRTC. We’re anxious to distribute our services outside of Quebec," says Pierre Roy, president and CEO of Les Chaînes Télé Astral Inc, which operates such French-language specialty channels as Canal D and Canal Famille. Michel Arpin corporate secretary at MusiquePlus concurs, "I think basically …the decision goes in the direction we had advocated as an intervenor and as our trade association had suggested." The French-language channel owners were also pleased the ruling applies to smaller cable systems. "The Class 3s should face some responsibility. That’s definite progress," says Charles Vallerand, director of communications and marketing at TV5. But Janet Yale, president and CEO of the Canadian Cable Television Association, cautions that the ruling only applies to Class 3 systems with digital capacity and at this point none of the association’s Class 3 stand alone members have a digital offering. Some small systems may be covered by the ruling, such as the all-digital Kirkland Lake system owned by Regional Cablesystems Inc, which is not a CCTA member. "It’s the first time the commission has imposed carriage obligations that include our Class 3 members. I think that is going to be a real challenge (if the systems go digital)," says Yale, later adding, "I think that rule would have been more appropriate in a world that pre-dates competition because it’s the smaller systems in the remote regions that are facing the toughest impact from satellite providers." She notes that if smaller systems are to compete against DTH, they have to focus on providing services with broad appeal. Not everything is picture perfect The French services didn’t get everything on their wish list. For example, the policy requires that Class 1 and 2 cablecos distribute in analog the same number of Canadian French-language services as they were distributing on March 10, 2000. "It’s different to say the number must remain the same, rather than the channels currently on analog must stay," says Roy. Distributors could decide to substitute an existing French-language service for another, although he feels that’s unlikely. What worries Vallerand the most is how the policy will be implemented. He’s concerned that distributors, which get the French-language channels outside Quebec at greatly reduced wholesale rates, will overprice the services and not package them very well. "TV5 is currently in the basic package, but there’s no guarantee of that in the digital world," he notes. "I think our services will find themselves as an option. That’s what happened to TV5 on Vidéotron and Look’s digital offering. It was removed from the basic package, which is the most universal and price effective." He points out that distributors mark up the price of the French-language services to as much as $8.99 monthly, when they are only charged "quarters a month in wholesale fees." Yale reiterates, however, that the policy’s main purpose is to make French-language services available outside of Quebec. "These services have to be available; they don’t have to be aggressively packaged and marketed," she explains. She adds, "There’s a big difference whether a cable company is going to aggressively market services to a subset of customers rather than focusing on the majority of their customers, particularly when we have a digital launch to focus on where we have 16 Category 1s and countless Category 2s."

CRTC praised for making French-language channels available across Canada

Broadcast | February 28, 2001

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